(CNN) – A new poll of likely voters in Florida released Thursday indicates Republican nominee Mitt Romney has an edge over President Barack Obama in the state.

The Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald poll shows Romney up seven percentage points with 51% of likely Florida voters' support to Obama's 44%. Romney's advantage is within the poll's sampling error. The same survey conducted one month ago showed a much tighter race between the candidates in the Sunshine State with Obama up 48% to Romney's 47%.

The Florida survey was conducted entirely after the first presidential debate, following what was largely considered an unenthusiastic showing from the president. The Romney campaign capitalized on the GOP candidate's lauded performance while the president conceded Thursday that he had a "bad night" last week in Denver.

According to a CNN/ORC International survey conducted right after the debate, 67% of debate watchers questioned said that the Republican nominee won the contest, with one in four saying that President Barack Obama was victorious. National polls released in the days following the debate continued to indicate Romney received a post-debate bounce.

"There's no question in my mind that debate made people stand up and pay attention, and it really wiped away any questions people had about Romney, whether they were undecided or soft for Obama," Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research told the Tampa Bay Times.

An NBC/WSJ/Marist poll, however, released hours before Thursday's vice presidential debate indicated the candidates are in a dead heat among likely Florida voters with Obama at 48% and Romney at 47%. Obama had 47% and Romney had 46% in their poll from early last week.

Senior Obama adviser David Plouffe pushed back on the Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald poll's findings, telling the Times that the survey "is just not rooted in reality."

"We got 57 percent of the Latino vote, according to exit (polls) last time. We think we'll probably push 60 or above this time," Plouffe said Thursday. The campaign believes the president has an edge over Romney by a point or two and a floor support in the state of 47%.

Last month, polls showed Obama slightly ahead over Romney.

The latest CNN Poll of Polls - which is an average of six Florida polls of likely voters conducted over the past week two weeks - taken September 16-30 shows Obama with an advantage in the state, 50% to Romney's 45%.

The Times poll showed Romney ahead of Obama on a host of issues; including who likely voters believe would help improve the economy, protect Medicare – a boon for the state's large senior citizen population – and who is better looking out for the middle-class.

The battleground state holds a highly-contested 29 electoral votes and is considered a "toss up" on CNN's Electoral Map.

The president attended a campaign rally in Coral Gables, Florida Thursday before Vice President Joe Biden took the stage with Republican running mate Paul Ryan in Danville, Kentucky for the only vice presidential debate.

Shortly after the debate, Obama congratulated the vice president on what the campaign viewed as a stellar performance telling reporters in Washington that he "couldn't be prouder" of Biden. A CNN/ORC poll, nationwide poll conducted right after Thursday night's faceoff, showed debate watchers split over the winner of the match-up. Forty-eight percent of voters who watched the debate thought Ryan was victorious while 44% said Biden won. The Republican running mate's four point advantage among a debate audience that was more Republican than the country as a whole is within the survey's sampling error.

Though vice presidential debates are unlikely to tip the scales Thursday's survey in Florida as well as national polls suggest Romney's performance had an effect on voters.

The presidential contenders will square off for the second time in New York on October 16 in a debate moderated by CNN's Candy Crowley.

The Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald survey consisted of 800 telephone interviews of likely Florida voters and was conducted from October 8-10 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for the Times and its media partners. The poll's sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

soundoff(324 Responses)

truth hurts

Nice to see Florida, among many other states, wake up and see that 4 more years of the Obama nightmare is NOT an option. We need somebody COMPETENT in the Whitehouse and that person is Romney. Our long national nightmare will soon end.

October 12, 2012 10:13 am at 10:13 am |

Rick McDaniel

One thing is clear........things will NOT get better, under Obama.

Whether you like Romney or not, he is the only viable option to Obama, and that is in truth your only clear choice.

October 12, 2012 10:21 am at 10:21 am |

SOUTHERN HOTTIE

Yawn. Polls mean nothing.

October 12, 2012 10:22 am at 10:22 am |

demwit

That will change, after Joe's GLORIOUS debate victory last night..

October 12, 2012 10:26 am at 10:26 am |

American People

We want to see Willard's tax returns for the last 20 years. We want to see that Willard is a criminal for not disclosing his off-shore account income in his tax returns.

October 12, 2012 10:27 am at 10:27 am |

jinx88

And tomorrow it will be Obama. Polls are getting stupid at this stage in the race.

October 12, 2012 10:36 am at 10:36 am |

demwit

Joe was on FIRE last night! Aggitated, agressive and barely able to sit down..., that must have been some good stuff!!

October 12, 2012 10:37 am at 10:37 am |

Al-NY,NY

so where are all the crying righties saying that polls are "skewed left?"

October 12, 2012 10:42 am at 10:42 am |

The REAL Truth...

Yet another poll indicating that blow and go is outing TRUTH and FACT!
Our red state electorate has truly become dumber than mud...

You need to do some research and check out the facts folks.. then decide!

October 12, 2012 10:42 am at 10:42 am |

Four and The Door

"We got 57 percent of the Latino vote, according to exit (polls) last time. We think we'll probably push 60 or above this time," Plouffe said Thursday. The campaign believes the president has an edge over Romney by a point or two and a floor support in the state of 47%.
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Pre-debate. Mitt Romney did an excellent job of getting his plan out during the debate... better than he has done so far in the campaign. People like what they saw. Something that made sense and gave them confidence about the future.

October 12, 2012 10:46 am at 10:46 am |

Jack from Illinois

If the seniors in Floriduh vote for RMoney/Ryan, they have no one to blame but themselves when their Social Security and Medicare swirl counter-clockwise down the drain.

October 12, 2012 10:46 am at 10:46 am |

Jon

Let the spin begin!!!

October 12, 2012 10:49 am at 10:49 am |

John Baloney

Biden was rude!

October 12, 2012 10:49 am at 10:49 am |

Borderless

Obama was counting on Racist Joe to turn things around. With yet another loss under their belts, Team Obama is finding that just spreading lies and false accusations about their opponents isn't getting the job done. Romney/Ryan – 2, Obama/Whatshisname – 0.

October 12, 2012 10:49 am at 10:49 am |

vic , nashville ,tn

I love these poll numbers!
This week we had last day of voter registration for 2012 , did these poll consider new voter registration ?
In Dade, Monroe, Broward, Orange, Osceola counties more Hispanics and young people registered vote this year

October 12, 2012 10:51 am at 10:51 am |

TJ

This election is moving in Romney's favor as the nation starts to see that this administration has nothing new to offer. Only a stagnant economy where people become more and more dependent on government for help. Romney and Ryan want to grow the economy. This administration is satisfied with the current state since they have nothing new to offer.

October 12, 2012 10:54 am at 10:54 am |

Jimm

Not sure how anyone can think that Romney will better protect Medicare.

October 12, 2012 10:54 am at 10:54 am |

Bara-ck Hu-ssein Owe-bama is DONE

President Hu-ssein is finished.

October 12, 2012 10:56 am at 10:56 am |

reasonablebe

the story, according to several people who work with elderly, of which there are an extraordinary population of in FL, is that many elderly people tend to become much more very self centered and selfish, only caring about what is theirs– without regard to how that affects even their own children or grandchildren.

Thus, if they believe Romney will leave their medicare and ss alone alone, they do not care what he will do (or try to do) to anyone else. Ryan is now claiming for the first time that medicare for the elderly will not change either– or at least not as they see it because he has said that the RR plan is for vouchers or 'premium support' but would only effect those who could afford it– were over whatever level (not specified) because medicare or insurance would still pay all for those, without added deductions or added premium-– when was the last time you came across an older person (over 75) who thought they were well off enough to pay more health insurance premium? So they all think it won't apply to them.

make romney give specifics about what consider well off enough to not need 100% subsidies– I bet it it is a lot lower than most elderly think.... and it's also a blatant untruth– everyone will pay more, except the ultrawealthy who have all kinds of extra optional private insurance in addition to medicare anyway, to cover things medicare doeswn't, like plastic surgery and so on.

October 12, 2012 10:57 am at 10:57 am |

George Cook

The Florida Tide is coming in and guess who is in front..it ain't Mr O anymore....the one and done is done

October 12, 2012 10:57 am at 10:57 am |

Steve

obama had a bad night? in fact he has had a bad 3 years.

October 12, 2012 10:58 am at 10:58 am |

selfevolved

What's the point of even having a poll if a 7% difference is still in the margin of error? That's completely useless.

October 12, 2012 10:58 am at 10:58 am |

myviewis

Paul Ryan won the debate last night as Romney won his debate. Obviously, Romney/Ryan are the choice for the White House.

October 12, 2012 10:59 am at 10:59 am |

Ron Anderson

When all is said and done the people will what reality states and seems CNN is bit jaded....WE Democrats show the country that the voters will vote Obama/Biden 2012!!!!!

October 12, 2012 11:00 am at 11:00 am |

miamioolite

UGH I hate bad statistics. Way to go CNN 44% + 51% equals 95%. So we still have 5% of the respondents who could not decide, and what is the error on the poll???? +/- what? I'll bet around 5%. So saying there is a 7% lead is BAD REPORTING. It was the same with the polls last month that were the other direction!!! Statistically speaking one side has a 2% lead at most. And if you calculated a significance p value, one side or the other would probably show no statistically significant difference from the other. I would be very disappointed in my students if they represented statistical analysis this way. Ok rant off.